Reducing power consumption is increasingly important for current computing devices, particularly for mobile computing devices and other power-constrained systems. For most devices, graphics processing and display are major power consumers. Typically, a display panel must be constantly refreshed with frame buffer data from the main memory of the device. However, in many common usage scenarios, the device may often display a static image (e.g., while reading, web browsing, word processing, working with email communication, etc.). Certain display panels may reduce power consumption by supporting panel self-refresh (PSR), also known as display self-refresh. PSR-capable panels include a local memory frame buffer (e.g., a DRAM buffer) that may retain the last-rendered frame. The PSR-capable panel may display the static image from its internal buffer. Other components of the computing device such as the processor or SoC may power down while the panel is in PSR mode. The panel may resume rendering images from main memory when the displayed image changes. In some devices, the contents of the local frame buffer of the display may be read back by software or by an external display interface such as HDMI.